Twenty-four children in an eastern China town have been hospitalized, as of late Wednesday, after dangerously high levels of lead were found in their blood. The children, from nine months to 16 years old, suffered from moderate to severe lead poisoning with more than 250 microgrammes of lead per litre of blood, said Cheng Bangning, deputy director of the Anhui Provincial Children's Hospital's micro-elements testing laboratory. Five-year-old Huang Han was among the first group of children admitted to the hospital. The lead level in his blood reached 330.9 microgrammes. Several more children are waiting to be admitted, he added. Most of these children were living in the town's Xinshan Community, where two battery plants operated nearby. Some parents of the sickened children said there was only a road separating the community and the plants, where lead processing occurred. However, environmental protection authorities have ordered that no residential community should be built within a radius of 500 meters from a battery plant. The local government has shut down the plants and has been sending the town's children to the provincial capital of Hefei City to test their blood lead levels.
